Arne Duncan
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Arne Duncan (born 11-6-1964) is an American education administrator and basketball player who is the current Chief Executive Officer of the Chicago Public Schools.
Duncan grew up in Hyde Park, Chicago, where his father Starkey Duncan was a psychology professor at the University of Chicago, and mother Susan Morton ran a Children's Center on the city's south side for African American youth. Duncan spent a great deal of his free time at his mother's center tutoring children and sharpening his basketball skills with the neighborhood children. Some of his childhood friends were John Rogers CEO of Ariel Capital Management and founder of the The Ariel School, Illinois Senator Kwame Raoul, actor Michael Clarke Duncan, singer R. Kelly, and martial artist Michelle Gordon. He attended the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools and graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University with a degree in sociology. At Harvard, he was co-captain of the basketball team and named a first team Academic All-American. From 1987 to 1991, Duncan played professional basketball in Australia with the Eastside Spectres of the NBL [1], and while there worked with children who were wards of the state.
In 1992 Duncan became director of the Ariel Education Initiative, a program to enhance educational opportunities for children on Chicago's South Side, and in 1998 he joined the Chicago Public Schools, where he became Deputy Chief of Staff for former Schools CEO Paul Vallas.
Mayor Richard M. Daley appointed Duncan to his current post on June 26, 2001.
He was a fellow in the Leadership Greater Chicago’s class of 1995, and a member of the Aspen Institute’s Henry Crown Fellowship Program, Class of 2002. In May of 2003, he received an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Lake Forest College.
